


The wait is what kills me (please wake up, I need you)

by Publisher021



Series: Publisher021's Whumptober2019 [12]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Author Can't Tag, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Hospital, Hurt Steve Rogers, I'm Sorry, Injury, M/M, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony gives every villain a nickname, Tony reminisces, Waiting in a hospital is scary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24052168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Publisher021/pseuds/Publisher021
Summary: He doesn't know how he manages to get Steve to the medical van, just that he does. And in between all his panicking and the haze that's sort've settled over his mind and refuses to be shaken off, he's aware of someone at his shoulder. Whether they're talking to him or trying to steer him in some direction he's not sure. All that he knows is that he's grateful for the guidance, seeing as his legs have suddenly decided to play around and turn to jello, and that the hand on his armored shoulder is a comfort, despite him not being able to feel it.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Publisher021's Whumptober2019 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1508237
Kudos: 19





	The wait is what kills me (please wake up, I need you)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 2 - Explosion for my Whumptober fics. It's slightly longer than my recent fics, but what can I say? I was inspired for some reason (and in the mood to write something a little longer)

He knows that it's part of their job and that having a loved one in the same line of work is often much worse than having a spouse that isn't. 

Sitting beside Steve's hospital bed, he's overly aware of the incessant beeping of the heart monitor, and he's overcome with the thought of just how horrible it is to be the one sitting on the opposite side - this time more than just the metaphorical standing in someone else's shoes, he's  _ literally _ traded places with Steve.

Instead of Steve being the one sitting in the stiff plastic chair beside his hospital bed waiting for him to wake up while he holds his hand,  _ he's _ sitting vigilantly by Steve's bedside. 

So there's a story on how Steve landed up in the hospital. There's always a story of why one of the team members ends up in medical or the hospital. Although, Steve is never the one in bed, he's always the one beside the bed, always standing watch. The ever-protective team leader.

This time it was an explosion. They'd been fighting in downtown Manhattan, nothing but your standard run of the mill wannabe villain of the day, looking for his five minutes of fame against the Avengers. Which, if he's being honest, lasted considerably less than five minutes. Monocle-Man, as Tony took to calling him in his head, was easy to take down, and he was irritable enough about the whole suiting up and getting out of bed deal to take him down himself. But the bastard was slippery, Tony'll give him that.

He'd slipped out of the grip of one of the junior SHIELD agents' grip and started monologuing in the middle of the street, hands waving wildly in the air and chest heaving like some sort of crazy person. In the end, Bucky had punched him in the face with the metal arm, knocking him out cold and cutting his little speech on world domination short. 

But the efforts and their relief at ending the fight made them sloppy, each of them too focused going back to the tower and getting back into bed or watching a movie or whatever it was that they were doing to realize that it was all an act. Sure, maybe the speech wasn't an act, but everything was a way of distracting the team and the few SHIELD agents milling about.

Not even two minutes after Monocle-Man is picked up from the floor and handcuffed and loaded into a SHIELD vehicle, two vacant buildings near to where they were fighting suddenly explodes, causing a sudden heatwave and blast that knocks people off their feet. The few civilians that had come out to take pictures of the Avengers while they were doing clean-up run away screaming, cellphones still in hand.

It's only when they're checking for casualties and injuries among the chaos that lays in the wake of the sudden explosion that Tony realizes that Steve hadn't answered on comms.

He's panicking and getting JARVIS to run scans when he sees Steve.

Steve's lying in the street, a couple of feet away from one of the storefronts, broken glass and debris littered around his body.

He doesn't know how he manages to get Steve to the medical van, just that he does. And in between all his panicking and the haze that's sort've settled over his mind and refuses to be shaken off, he's aware of someone at his shoulder. Whether they're talking to him or trying to steer him in some direction he's not sure. All that he knows is that he's grateful for the guidance, seeing as his legs have suddenly decided to play around and turn to jello, and that the hand on his armored shoulder is a comfort, despite him not being able to feel it.

When he gets to the hospital, a whole twenty minutes later due to SHIELD standing in his way, he's met with complete silence on the floor where Steve is currently resting. On every corner an agent is waiting in the shadows, eyes staring straight ahead and hands gripping their sides in a way that makes even him uneasy.

At least SHIELD seems to take their security thing seriously,  _ this time at least. _

Nobody is allowed on this floor without clearance, and because it's a public hospital, he's left wondering exactly what sort of strings Fury's had to pull to get an entire wing of the hospital for SHIELD personnel only, despite only one man occupying a single bed. Not that he's complaining, he's grateful for whatever Nick has had to do to pull this off, not that he's going to say as much, in so many words. Maybe he'll give SHIELD a couple of upgrades to their helicarriers as a thank you. Maybe.

He slips into Steve's room with a single nod of his head to the two built SHIELD agents standing guard at the door, and they nod in return, stepping aside and moving down the hall to give him some privacy.

Before he even gives a thought of planting himself in the plastic hair beside Steve's bed, he grabs the medical chart that's hanging on the cupboard on the wall.

Among a concussion, there's a handful of other injuries, but, coupled together with the fact that the physical evidence of what Steve's injuries look like is staring him in the face, it seems so much worse than it actually is. 

Steve's got a concussion, three broken ribs, a punctured lung and various cuts and bruises to add insult to injury.

He's sleeping, hopefully it's peaceful and dreamless but the concoction of drugs that the medical staff had given him and the dosages that SHIELD supplied him with was enough to make him so still that Steve looked as if he was never going to wake up.

Seeing it up close and personal is terrifying, and the lump that forms at the back of his throat threatens to choke him. He swallows many times and when it doesn't work, he grabs Steve's hand in an effort to ground himself.

It works, and he's able to breathe easier.

He tries to work, making an attempt at answering the mountain of emails that Pepper sent him, but his productivity is at a steady decline the longer he sits beside his comatose husband.

So he packs his phone away, updating the team and Pepper on Steve's situation and injuries and instead settles in for the long haul.

His eyes wander around the room, taking stock of the equipment and the color of the walls. (It's sterile white, obviously).

When he gets bored of that, he stares at Steve instead, eyes raking over all the cuts and bruises on his too-pale face. 

He's struck by the thought of how Pepper and Rhodey and Happy and Steve and whoever else might care about him must've felt all those times he's landed himself in the hospital or injured himself, and he can't help but feel guilty.

It's terrifying being the one that has to wait in the chair, wondering if the person in the bed is going to wake up or not. And he  _ knows  _ Steve will wake up, he does, it's just that his mind doesn't seem to care about those facts, merely the fact that Steve is unconscious and lying too still in a hospital bed.

And he knows that whatever he's feeling right now - a mix of terrifying shock and horror to bone-weary exhaustion - that while he might know that Steve will wake up, the people that once had to be in his exact situation often didn't know whether he was going to wake up or not. 

There was that time that he nearly got killed (in an accident that he had no part of!) and Rhodey was the one in the chairs beside his bed, then there was the time when he had to have his stomach pumped after he got so drunk and Pepper was the one in the chair, eyes red-rimmed and a stubborn glare on her face. That was when she had told him should he ever make her have to go through something like that again, she would in no uncertain terms quit without informing him.

That was the last time he ever did something like that to her.

And then there was Steve, who had to sit by his bedside after he got crushed by a building during a routine mission, another time when he had gotten hit in the head and gotten a severe concussion, and then another when he broke both his leg and a rib.

When Steve wakes up, he vows silently to himself, he'll treat him until Steve inevitably got sick of him doting on him and he'll try his best not to get so badly hurt that he ended up in hospital whenever they were on a mission.

For the moment, he's happy to hold Steve's hand and keep watch while the serum does its job and he heals.

**Author's Note:**

> I've just now realized that as of late, my fics for my Whumptober prompts (the last couple of fics, at least) weren't that angsty, well, at least to me. The titles of the fics, however, were more angstier than the actual fic, and for that I apologize. Whoops. 
> 
> I'm nearly done with all of my prompts (wow, only took me about a year to complete) and then I can - hopefully - start posting my longfic. *crosses fingers*
> 
> Thank you guys for sticking with this extremely mediocre series.


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